the 23rd channel

The 23rd Channel


The TV is my shepherd, I shall not want.
It makes me lie down on the sofa.
It leads me away from the faith.
It destroys my soul.
It leads me in the path of sex and violence for the sponsor's sake.
Yea, though I walk in the shadow of Christian responsibilities,
There will be no interruption, for the TV is with me.
Its cable and remote control, they comfort me.
It prepares a commercial for me in the presence of my worldliness.
It anoints my head with humanism and consumerism.
My coveting runneth over.
Surely, laziness and ignorance shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house watching TV forever.

Author Unknown

Just what is in that electronic box so many of us devote many hours of our lives to?

I have gone to visit friends and had them leave the TV on the whole time of our visit. I have also see them almost beside themselves because they didn’t have the TV on to watch the latest this or that. Ouch! How not to make a friend feel important or welcome!

I have more and more become convinced that the TV in the living room of America has become an idol to most folks.

Idolatry is usually defined as worship of any cult image, idea, or object, as opposed to the worship of a monotheistic God.

Worship is etymologically derived from Old English words meaning "worth-ship". Giving worth to something.[1] In its older sense in English of worthiness or respect (Anglo-Saxon,worthscripe), worship may on occasion refer to an attitude towards someone of immensely elevated social status, such as a lord or a monarch, or, more loosely, towards an individual, such as a hero or one's lover.

How many Americans would rush home to watch American Idol and leave their Bible on the shelf to gather dust?

How many Christians have hours of time to spend watching TV, but never seem to find the time for Bible study or prayer time?

TV can do some of the following:

It can keep families from spending quality time together. Separate husbands and wives, leaving the other feeling left out or unimportant.

TV can corrupt our minds with an endless flow of immorality, vanity, greed, violence and dissatisfaction with how we look, what we are and what we own.

TV can corrupt young minds with things that they are in no way mature enough to handle.

TV presents people as idols and promotes immoral people as people to look up to. True heroes have largely lost their relevance in our artificial reality world of TV.
TV gobbles up huge parts of our lives which could be used for so many more important endeavors. Many worthwhile organizations, devoted to helping others, are now begging for help. Could this be overcome by less TV?

And yes, TV does make us lazy and even fat. Once settled into an evening on the couch, we are content to stay there until bedtime.

It is hard to break the TV habit and it surely is a habit. We at first feel restless and bored. We may even feel a bit lost or edgy. But this will pass. As we gradually take back our lives from the remote control. We learn that it is much easier to leave the TV off, than it is to turn the TV off. As time goes by, our own creativity returns. We begin to crave the company of other people and not the artificial relationship we had with the TV.

We are each given an amount of time on this earth. How can we discover how we were intended to spend that time if we are always distracted by a TV? We will all one day stand before the Lord and give an account of how we spent our lives. I don’t think He meant us to waste our lives in hedonistic pursuits. Is it “remotely” possible that you too need to turn TV off and turn your own life back on?

Catholic Aganda in the Manhattan Decalration

I could not have better said what was said in this letter...so I included it for any to read. It is from the Berean Beacon.

Catholic Agenda Embedded in the Manhattan Declaration
By Richard Bennett
Roman Catholic Dual Purpose Behind the Manhattan Declaration
On November 20th, 2009, more than 150 people portraying themselves as Christian leaders of Orthodox, Catholic, and Evangelical backgrounds declared their unity because of moral issues. The signers who are uniting themselves together in the Mahattan Declaration (MD) identify themselves under the signed statement, “We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good….”1 The Website of MD states that the purpose of the document is “simply to speak with one voice on the most pressing moral issues of our day…[MD is] simply a statement of solidarity about only the social issues it addresses.”2 And the document itself may not appear to have any objective other than quoted. However, under the Website section entitled, “Message to all signers of the Manhattan Declaration,” the clearly stated purpose is a call for a political movement. This shows that, in fact, the Manhattan Declaration is only the latest step in the downgrade into implementing Catholic social doctrine. There is yet another purpose; one primarily stated in Vatican Council II and post-Vatican Council II documents. Through the use of social issues, the Roman Catholic Church seeks to draw true Evangelical Bible-believers into itself so that there can be no opposition by them on the fundamental issues of the authority of the Bible alone and the Gospel.
In order to soften up the Evangelicals in their separation from the Catholics on biblical doctrinal issues, particularly the authority of the Bible alone and the Gospel, the Catholic modus operandi calls for using social issues on which both Evangelicals and Catholics agree as preliminary common ground. The major social issues selected by MD are acceptable, but what gives away the underlying Catholic far left political agenda is some of the vocabulary used. This vocabulary has a general meaning, to be sure, but in the context of Roman Catholic social doctrine, it means something quite specific. As Evangelicals are drawn together with Catholics on social issues – like the social issues mentioned in this document – the ensuing ecumenical dialogue “serves to transform modes of thought and behavior and the daily life of their [Evangelical] communities [churches]. In this way, it [ecumenical dialogue] aims at preparing the way for their unity of faith in the bosom of a Church one and visible: thus ‘little by little’…all Christians will be gathered”3 into the Roman Catholic Church with its dual authority base, false gospel, and accompanying far left agenda. The Roman Catholic Church’s primary goal is to make enforceable its claim that it is the only true church of Jesus Christ and its pope, the claimed “Vicar of Christ,” has the right to judge everybody, as he did during the Middle Ages. In order to accomplish this, the Papacy must do away with the supreme authority of the Bible and the Gospel and it must silence all who stand against it in this endeavor. This is the Roman Catholic context in which the Manhattan Declaration is set.
1 Main Website, second paragraph; http://www.manhattandeclaration.org/
2 http://www/manhattandeclaration.org/faqs 1/14/2010 Q. 4
3 Doc. No. 42, “Reflections and Suggestions Concerning Ecumenical Dialogue”, S.P.U.C., Aug.15, 1970 in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Austin Flannery, Gen Ed., 1981 Edition; II, Para. 2 (d).
Ambiguous Preamble
The Preamble of the Manhattan Declaration itself lacks a stated purpose. Instead, it proclaims that Christians are “heirs of a 2,000-year tradition” ambiguously defined as “proclaiming God’s word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.” The statement certainly does not mean a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming the truth of God’s Word seen in Scripture – because both the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy deny the sole authority of Scripture as well as the Gospel.4 Equally important, the Preamble does not identify who is meant by the general term “Christians.” That is given only far down in the second section of MD. These two signal factors alone ought to make any Evangelical wary.
Named Drafters of MD
The named drafters of MD are Robert George, an ardent Roman Catholic taking the place of the now deceased Richard John Neuhaus; Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School, and Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries and now of Center for Christian Worldview. In order to achieve the solidarity among the parties of which the Website spoke, clearly all the compromises have been made by Timothy George as the Evangelical representative. This is required by the Roman Catholic drafter and those behind him. Indeed, it was to that end that Timothy George was invited by the organizers of the project to be the drafter from the Evangelical side. He is a leader whose “public witness on behalf of justice, human rights, and the common good”5 is in line with the Roman Catholic political and ecumenical purposes. “Justice, human rights, and the common good” are all buzz words for Roman Catholic far left doctrine as spelled out in the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the [Roman Catholic] Church.”
Timothy George’s Major Compromises
Timothy George’s first compromise was to agree to the authority base of the document. That base is not the Bible alone; but instead, it is hard-core Roman Catholic tradition and Scripture.6 This corrupted authority base makes it possible to settle on ambiguous terminology which does not align doctrinally with the Bible, particularly regarding the Gospel.
Equally important is the total compromise by Timothy George on the Gospel. Although the Preamble states that “Christians today are called to proclaim the Gospel of costly grace,” there is a vagueness of expression and confusion regarding the meaning of “costly grace.” Man’s position as a sinner under the vengeful wrath of Holy God is not explained. On the authority of the Bible alone, salvation by God’s grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, is not explained. Yet MD’s bland expression, the “Gospel of costly grace,” is the closest the Declaration gets to the Gospel. Obviously, MD’s flexible phrase is meant to cover up the lack of “solidarity” among the signers—because there can be no solidarity of unbelievers with those who have been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, and in Christ alone.
4 Catechism of the Catholic Church Para 1129, “The Church affirms that for believers the sacraments of the New Covenant are necessary for salvation. ‘Sacramental grace’ is the grace of the Holy Spirit, given by Christ and proper to each sacrament.” Also “What Do Orthodox Christians Believe?” Lamp: 1996 9 Serbian Orthodox Church
5 MD website, faqs, Q. 2. 1/14/2010
6 Catechism, Para. 82
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In another section MD states, “It is our duty to proclaim the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in its fullness, both in season and out of season.”7 This is a sop to Evangelical Christians, but one which, if they actually did their duty, requires them to confront the Roman Catholic and Orthodox signers with the supreme authority of the Bible and with the Gospel. Both Catholic and Orthodox churches officially deny the Gospel and in its place actively teach and practice a false gospel. Only those who actually are saved and “in Christ,” those who actually believe the Gospel, are charged with proclaiming it.8
Roman Church History Whitewashed
Another major compromise, to which Timothy George bowed, regards the history of Evangelical Christians and the Roman Catholic Church. The historical facts of the Roman Catholic Church’s centuries of Inquisition against millions of Bible-believers and others cannot be air-brushed away with a brief statement that institutions have made mistakes, as MD tries to do. Neither can the drafters, by claiming to speak exclusively as individuals, exonerate themselves from this outrage. The most important part of the Preamble’s summary on Christian history is what it fails to say.
The Preamble presents a few bits of history to support its claim to the heritage of Christian “tradition” but remains silent on the two most significant events of European history. The first is the six hundred year reign of terror by the Roman Catholic Papacy enforced by its murderous Inquisition. The second and equally important event is the Reformation of the sixteenth century – due to the recovery of the Bible and the Gospel in the hands of ordinary people. These two signal omissions were necessary because even to allude to either of them would destroy the supposed solidarity that MD purports to express.
For example, the Preamble states, “It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade….” However, by the start of the 16th century, three hundred years of enforced Papal edicts had already been enslaving Europe by robbing, torturing, and murdering millions of Bible believers and others throughout the Holy Roman Empire. The Inquisition was the Papal tool by which people were terrorized and forced into professing faith in the Roman Catholic false gospel and accompanying practices. It would be another three hundred years before the Inquisition was finally halted at the end of the eighteenth century. It is an outrage, and an utter disgrace, that Timothy George in particular, and Robert George as an educated man, allowed such whitewashing of the Roman Catholic Church’s bloody history be touted here.
Beginning in 1203, with “ethnic cleansing” of the Bible-believing Albigenses in France, the Papacy instituted its murderous system of Inquisition. In 1572, the Papacy, under edict from Pope Pius V before his death, was instrumental in the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, in which as many as 70,000 French Huguenots were “ethnically cleansed” from France. In the seventeenth century, the Papacy was heavily invested in “ethnic cleansing” of the Bible-believing Vaudois, or “people of the valleys” of the Cottian Alps. During World War II, the Roman Catholic state of Croatia, with the approval of the Papacy, wrecked “ethnic cleansing” on the Serbian Orthodox and others. The Papacy, too, was instrumental in preparing the way for the
7 MD, Section entitled “Declaration”
8 Ephesians Ch 1, 2:1-9.
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Holocaust of World War II, and it stood silently by while millions of Jews were murdered.9 The Papacy has not changed in spite of its new tactic of calling Evangelicals “separated brethren” rather than heretics.10
Further down in the same paragraph, the Preamble states, “In Europe, Christians…successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible.” Certainly the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches cannot be included in this statement. Rather, it was the Protestants of the Reformation—who had the Gospel and the Bible—that successfully dismantled the Holy Roman Empire in which the Pope, being head of the church of the civil state, could enforce his anti-biblical doctrine by means of civil law. In its place, the Protestants of the Reformation instituted the rule of law, and in America they powerfully shaped the Constitution which was an entirely new kind of government, a representative republic based on the rule of law, the basis of which was the Bible. Without the Reformation of the sixteenth century, the American Experiment of a new kind of civil government, in which having neither a state church nor a ruler claiming both temporal and spiritual authority, as the Pope does, could not have taken place. Many immigrants from Europe, England, and Scotland fled to the American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, because of the terrors that the Roman Catholic Church continued to perpetrate on their homelands. For Catholics, including Robert George, to claim a 2,000-year tradition of “seeking justice in our societies, [and] resisting tyranny” is simply a blatant lie.
Thus the drafters of the opening statement of the preamble to MD, by refusing to define there who is meant by “Christians,” are able to present insignificant bits of Catholic information that promote an outright falsehood regarding any Catholic claim for a history of “seeking justice” and “resisting tyranny.” The history of Orthodoxy’s oppression, while in no way matching that of Papal Rome, has fully opposed other forms of Christianity amounting to persecution of true believers in Orthodox nations. It is incredible that anyone who understands that Catholics and Orthodox are included in the Declaration’s definition of “Christian” could endorse this opening statement.
Robert George Obligated to Roman Catholic Social Doctrine
Robert George is morally obligated under the dictates of the Papacy to evangelize people, particularly Evangelicals and Orthodox, into the Roman Catholic Church by means of propagating its social doctrine. His duty as a Roman Catholic is laid out as follows, “The Pope as the ‘supreme teaching authority’ of the Roman Catholic Church has decreed the following for its lay people.
“In the tasks of evangelization, that is to say, of teaching, catechesis and formation that the Church's social doctrine inspires, it is addressed to every Christian [i.e., Catholic]…By fulfilling these responsibilities, the lay faithful put the Church's social teaching into action and thus fulfill the Church’s secular mission.” 11
9 John Cornwell, Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII (Viking Penguin, 1999)
10 The wording of Papal Rome’s tactical change are given in her official documents “Reflections and Suggestions Concerning Ecumenical Dialogue” in Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, Austin Flannery, O.P., editor (Northport, NY: Costello Publishing Co., 1981)
11Compendium Sect. 83 4
The Papacy has put real teeth into its dictates on this issue: “Insofar as it is part of the Church’s moral teaching, the Church’s social doctrine has the same dignity and authority as her moral teaching. It is authentic Magisterium, which obligates the faithful to adhere to it.”12 The duty of all lay Catholics to evangelize by teaching and implementing Roman Catholic social doctrine everywhere in secular society is obligatory on pain of excommunication. This means that the Papacy has a dependable “fifth column” in every nation where Catholics are found. Robert George, by his profession as a Roman Catholic and by his drafting of MD, shows that he is part of the Pope’s fifth column, whether or not he acknowledges it.
Political Objective of MD
The Website makes it very clear that MD has a political objective. Under the Website section entitled, “Message to all signers of the Manhattan Declaration,” that purpose is stated; namely, “We are seeking to build a movement – hundreds of thousands of Catholic, Evangelical, and Eastern Orthodox Christians who will stand together alongside other men and women of goodwill in defense of foundational principles of justice and the common good.”13
It is here that Christians are defined as Catholic, Evangelical, and Eastern Orthodox. Thus, true Evangelical Christians are to be yoked together with Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, neither of which is Christian. Furthermore, this newly formed “Christian” group is then to be yoked together with “other men and women of goodwill,” presumably meaning atheists, pagans, animists, and such as Buddhists and Hindus. This is exactly the world group that the “Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the [Roman Catholic] Church” targets as those who are to move the Catholic far leftist agenda forward into global implementation. Quite overtly the movement is to propagate the Roman Catholic social agenda, which comes to light by the words “justice and the common good.” Justice in Roman Catholic social doctrine is specifically defined. It now includes “economic” justice, which is a buzz word for the call for “redistribution of wealth from richer countries to poorer ones.” The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ 1995 Pastoral letter, “Economic Justice for All,” states, “In Catholic teaching, human rights include not only civil and political rights but also economic rights … ‘all people have a right to life, food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, education, and employment.’”14 However, in Scripture, God does not speak in terms of rights. The biblical mandate safeguards against injustice and grants men responsibility both in owning private property and in making their own economic decisions. It allows men the freedom to act with the dignity of beings created in God’s image. It also allows men the freedom to fail in their endeavors. The importance of true economics is that it does not primarily offer riches and extravagance, but rather its primary offer is one of freedom and personal responsibility to exercise one’s role before God in His universe. Such responsibility puts him face to face with God’s law, or his own law, and his own inevitable failure to live up to either. It gives him a chance to move beyond what he can see and control, and to seek for real truth. It is here that the supreme authority of the Bible and the Gospel bring to him the truth that he needs. The Bible alone teaches him truthfully of God’s sovereignty and shows him his need for a Savior. He then can understand that his dependence ought to be on God through Jesus Christ. Conversely, the thrust behind “economic rights,” – i.e., the “redistribution of wealth” for which the Roman Catholic social agenda calls – seeks to transfer an individual’s responsibility
12 Compendium, Sect. 80. Emphasis is in original.
13 Manhattandeclaration.org/for_signers_whats_next 1/14/2010
14 National Conference of Catholic Bishops, www.osjspm.org/rights_and_duties.aspx 2/10/2010 5
before God and, therefore, his dependence on God to a demoralizing dependence on the civil state or on the Roman Church. These two institutions then become either a god or the unauthorized intermediary for the true God.
The term “the common good,” mentioned eight times in MD, is a Roman Catholic social agenda buzz phrase. Thus, the official papal Compendium states,
“The Church’s social teaching moreover calls for recognition of the social function of any form of private ownership that clearly refers to its necessary relation to the common good….The universal destination of goods entails obligations on how goods are to be used by their legitimate owners…From this there arises the duty on the part of owners not to let the goods in their possession go idle and to channel them to productive activity, even entrusting them to others who are desirous and capable of putting them to use in production. 15
What very few realize is that this concept of “the common good” in Roman Catholic teachings involves enforcement by the civil governments in which every person is required to participate.16 It is this that Pope Benedict called for in his encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate” of June 29, 2009,17 and for which the official Papal Compendium also calls.18 How many of the Evangelicals who have signed MD have understood that what appears to be a convervative, Bible-based concern over “justice and the common good” —words that in America unmistakenly hearken back to the Preamble to the U. S. Constitution—have here been formed into a deceptive tool to be used against them. When Evangelical Christians sign MD, the Roman Catholic social agenda with its enforced moral obligations is being advanced. That agenda stands diametrically opposed to the Bible, to the U.S. Constitution, and to the Bill of Rights. When fully formed, the larger political-religious global institution envisioned by the Papacy will be fully coercive, as it has been in every totalitarian regime. Thus, when MD speaks of how Roman Catholicism has stood for freedom when it does not, and never has, it is clear that Robert George and his Roman Catholic advisors have laid a trap for unsuspecting Evangelicals in particular.
The Ecumenical Purpose
It is no coincidence that the ecumenical agenda of the Pope appears in the Manhattan Declaration. This Declaration is as important as the proclamation that launched the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) movement in 1994. The words at that time were, “This statement cannot speak officially for our communities [churches]. It does intend to speak responsibly from our communities and to our communities.”19 On this occasion, however, the leaders claim Christian unity “as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations, but speaking to and from our communities.”20 Again, the same words are not a coincidence; rather, they are evidence of the same purpose, namely, both Catholics and Evangelicals are to be accepted as “Christian.” Part of the reason for the terminology change from “speaking from our communities” is that the Catholic Church has offically stated that Evangelical churches are not
15 Compendium Sect. 178 Emphasis not in original.
16 Compendium, Sect. 167
17 http://www.vatican.va/.../encyclicals/.../hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html
18 “Charity in Truth”, Sect. 67
19 “Evangelicals & Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium”, First Things 1994, p. 1.
20 MD, First sentence
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“churches” in the proper sense.21 Therefore, while denying recognition to the Evangelical churches, the Roman Church uses this document to make a not-so-subtle display of its institutional power in order to ecumenize the Evangelical Christians and the Orthodox. When the two cardinals, seven archbishops, and five bishops of the Roman Catholic Church signed MD, they did so as representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy. This was done by using their full titles, rather than only their given names and the denominations from which they come; as for example, the cardinals sign as “His Eminence Adam Cardinal Maida, Archbishop Emeritus, Roman Catholic Diocese of Detroit, MI” and “His Eminence Justin Cardinal Rigali Archbishop, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia, PA.” The same can be said of most of the original signatories to the document. This means that although the signers claim to be speaking “as individuals, not on behalf of our organizations…” clearly they are using their titles to identify their status and power in the religious world. The list of signatories is meant to impress ordinary people so that on the basis of who’s who – or identity politics – they will also sign. Herein the Roman Catholic false ecumenism has accomplished a larger step in drawing Bible believers “little by little…” into thinking that the Roman Catholic Church is not so different from their own Evangelical churches.
One basic tactic of MD is to leave out of the Declaration the things on which the parties do not agree. This tactic is part of a “divide and conquer strategy.” It was enunciated in 1994 in Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), which sought to identify Roman Catholics as Christians. According to ECT, Roman Catholics were to be identified as Christians on the things about which they agreed with Evangelicals rather than on the authority of the Bible alone as regarding the major defining doctrinal issues that anyone who claims to be “in Christ” must believe. About these major doctrinal issues there is as yet no agreement.
The legacy of ECT fifteen years later is that in MD the defining issues regarding the identity of Christians is not addressed per se. Nevertheless, the drafters of MD were careful about how and when they would make it clear that Roman Catholics and Orthodox were to be included as Christians. To that end, the Preamble to MD simply makes statements about “Christians” and their heritage according to tradition, most of which could be accepted by the hasty, biblically ignorant, or naive Evangelical reader. But in the final paragraph of the section entitled, “Declaration,” after speaking about Catholics, Orthodox, and Evangelical Christians, the drafters flatly state, “We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences…” No argument has been made regarding the issue of whether historic “ecclesial differences” had been solved. Rather, the compromise of calling Roman Catholics and Orthodox “Christians” is stated as if it is a huge accomplishment, which it is for the Roman Catholic Church, but to the shame and disgrace of the Evangelicals who have compromised themselves.
MD itself must be read in the context of its Website if one is to comprehend what one is about to sign. The Declaration itself is fairly innocuous as a statement and of little political significance – except to the Roman Catholic Church with its far left agenda, particularly for the
21 Pope Benedict’s 2007 decree stated, Q. “Why do the texts of the Council and those of the Magisterium since the Council not use the title of “Church” with regard to those Christian Communities born out of the Reformation of the sixteenth century?” A. “…These ecclesial Communities which, specifically because of the absence of the sacramental priesthood, have not preserved the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic Mystery cannot, according to Catholic doctrine, be called “Churches” in the proper sense.” In “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of the Doctrine on the Church.”
www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070629_responsa-quaestiones_en.html 7
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U.S. In recognizing and signing onto MD, Evangelicals are sanctioning the Roman Catholic system and Orthodoxy as “Christian.” This is something they should have refused to do. Regarding the embedded Roman Catholic social agenda, however, many Evangelicals have simply been deceived by this cunning document.
The Scripture emphatically states, “God will not be deceived and He will not be mocked for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”22 True Christians therefore must make a stand, the Lord God will not be mocked, His glory and His Gospel of grace are at stake! ♦
Richard Bennett of “Berean Beacon” Website: http://www.bereanbeacon.org
Permission is given by the author to copy this article if it is done in its entirety without any changes.
Permission is also given post this article in its entirety on Internet WebPages.

Bible Burgh: Are the signers of the Manhattan Declaration unequally yoked?

Bible Burgh: Are the signers of the Manhattan Declaration unequally yoked?

OPEN LETTER TO THOSE SIGNING THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION

I am one little sheep, I have no pedigree or title after my name. But I have followed my Shepherd, Jesus Christ, for almost 30 years. Before that, I spent a lot of time searching for the Shepherd. To be sure, I have taken some wrong paths, but the Good Shepherd was always there waiting for me to return to Him.

There are many of us little sheep in His pasture. We have long looked to you, the under shepherds as helpers in following the Good Shepherd. But now we are unsure of you.
In Phillip Keller’s now classic book, A Shepherd Looks at the 23rd Psalm, we are told about real life sheep. Keller, being himself a shepherd, was uniquely qualified to explain some of the parables the Lord used about sheep.

One story Keller told was heartbreaking. He himself took extra care of his sheep and provided them with good feeding grounds. He told of one day seeing a neighbor’s flock. That sheep owner didn’t care a thing for his sheep. The pastures were brown and barren, the sheep ragged and uncared for. Keller told us how those sheep gazed longingly for hours at the green pastures his sheep had. They longed to be a part of Keller’s flock but were locked into a dry pasture by an uncaring sheep owner.

I view my friends in the Roman Catholic Church as some of those sheep in a barren pasture. They long for greener pastures, but they will not be led there by the Roman Catholic Church. They are owned an uncaring shepherd.

I understand your desire to turn back the flood of evil penetrating our world today. I stand with you against the evils that were defined in the Manhattan Declaration. I would have respected a signature on a document that did not include the clauses this one has on being fellow Christians with the Roman Catholic Church and The Orthodox Church. You have to know that by Bible definition they are not brothers and sisters of true Christians.
Though we do share some distinct beliefs, those that divide us are crucial. Tell me please, how did you sign that declaration of unity knowing they were a works based religion?
Do you see that by signing that document, you have slapped the face of every genuine Christian who has come out of the Roman Catholic Church? These Christians believed they were saved by grace and not works and left that lifeless church. To them it looks like you are saying that The Roman Catholic Church is okay after all!

I have a friend who was one of the thousands of children molested in the Catholic Church. He also watched his friend get molested. How do you think this makes him feel? Reaching across the aisle to those whose hands that have touched children in obscene ways and driven spikes into their little hearts is surely not acceptable. This church has covered up these sins and even asked the parishioners to come talk to the church and not the law. I know this is true, because they made that request in my home state of Wisconsin. They don’t want their evil deeds to come to light.

How can you join with a church who views the Virgin Mary as a co-redemptress? Mary is often elevated far higher than our Lord Jesus. How can we overlook all the blatant idolatry present in that church?

And how, pray tell, can you join hands with the “church” whose bloody hands have shed the innocent blood of millions of true believers? This blood was shed for as simple a “crime against the church” as reading the bible for themselves! Foxe's Book of Martyrs may well now accuse you by association. The Roman Catholic Church has never repented of that sin. One must ask then if they still believe they are justified.

I beg you to consider recanting your signature. Do you see that the same good could have come from this effort with language we could all live with?

Perhaps a wording such as, though we differ in our religious beliefs, we stand together against the march of moral decline and the forces who wish to take away our religious liberties and even our freedom of speech. By such wording, even people of any belief system could have signed the document. There would have been no implied ecumenism and the number of signers even higher.

The people who put this declaration together are very intelligent people. Surely if I, a lay person can see this way out … they could have too. I must deduce then, that there was another goal. Perhaps one that failed back in 1994, when the Evangelicals and Catholics Together was first trotted out for all to sign. That document even had the gaul to ask the signers to promise not to proselytize each other. In other words saved people signed away their right, no duty, to evangelize the lost souls in the Catholic Church! What an evil request!
　
Please won’t you take time to think this through? This is a serious matter with eternal consequences for many souls.
　
I will never lend my hand to signing this document as it stands. I am in favor of every single point on the turning back of attack on religious liberty, the value of human life and the sanctity of marriage between a man and woman. But I will not stand in the way of salvation of souls to “fight evil.” The battle is the Lord’s and he does not need such “allies” as the Roman Catholic Church to win His battles.

Respectfully,
One Little Sheep
(Elizabeth Register)

Louisa... Message From The Grave

I walked in a cemetery one day a few years back. I remember the day as though it were just yesterday. The things I saw and learned that day have left an indelible stamp on my mind and heart. They say the dead tell no tales, well let’s just see!

My daughter and I used to do tombstone rubbings. I can see your eyebrows lifting at that. It is a very interesting project. The older tombstones from the last century have some very lovely artwork on them. This art work is usually raised so that when you lay a paper over the artwork and rub the paper with a graphite stick you get a lovely rendering of that piece of art. It had been several years since we had done that though. My walk this time provided a much different result.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon; the temperature was just about perfect, even the usual abundant Wisconsin mosquito population was being held at bay. Forest Lawn Cemetery in Eau Claire, Wisconsin was just about the most peaceful place on earth that day.

I wandered about the gravestones of hundreds of departed souls. I silently gave thanks for the departed soldiers who had so selflessly given their lives for the rest of us. A gift given to folks they had never even met! Given so that we might enjoy the wonderful gift of freedom. I thought about how freedom really isn’t free unless many are willing to pay the price and lay down their lives to keep it. I was grateful to have been born in the land of the free.

I looked at the graves of small babies and my heart broke for the families who lost such dear little treasures.

I saw husbands who had lost sweet loving wives, wives who had lost the love and protection of a beloved husband.

Then the tombstones themselves, what an interesting lesson I learned from them. I saw so many grand tombstones. Made of granite, marble, brass and steal, many were carved with wonderful pictures and some even had photos on them. It seemed the grieving loved ones were trying to show us how important the lives of the departed had been. This they attempted to portray by size, style and costly materials. All this was in vain at this point in history; their stories had been lost to the ages. I thought about what the bible said about our lives here on earth being as a vapor, how true, we are here a mere breath and then gone.

What had these people really been like? Most of us will never know. How can we pass down a legacy to be remembered for those who will follow us?

My eyes fell on a plain little gravestone. I hardly would have noticed it. It belonged to a Christian couple. His name was John and his side of the stone read 1838-1929 Nearer My God To Thee. Her name was Louisa and her side said, Louisa 1838-1929 To Know Her Was To Know The Lord She Loved And Served. My heart jumped inside me and tears came to my eyes. Though I never knew anything about this woman before, I suddenly knew volumes about her.

She had the plainest of tombstones, no vain display of importance here, only the words on that stone. What a true honor for those of us who hold our hope in the Lord, to be remembered with such words! Think of it, to know you would be to know the Lord you love and served. I know my life has not even come close to hitting that mark. I envied not those with the huge tombstones, but that woman with her humble submitted life. Over the years, I have made Louisa and John’s tombstone a place I stopped by to get my bearings and see what really is important in this life. Tenderly placing flowers on their grave, I silently thank them for this inspiration and to the Lord for taking me on this tour of the tombstones. You see, the dead can tell tales!

"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' Matthew 25:21

Let Your Light Shine

It appears that today’s church seems to be trailing the world by a few paces. When I was a kid, there was a sharp demarcation between the free world and the communist world. The aim of communism of course was world domination. Today we are closer to entering a one world government than ever before in human history.

Never before has the world been set up to the point where the whole world could be under the control of one government. Today with the mass communications and surveillances in use, the tools are in place for one world governance.

Never before has such a large group of humanity raised their voices in favor of a world government. Never before has the government of America, the bulwark of freedom for generations, been so willing to lay it all down in favor of some ambiguous thing called “change”.

We who are still awake watch as one blood fought and won freedom after another, falls to a snowballing slide into an abyss. Helpless, we watch as a sleeping world does nothing to stop the seemly impending doom. Are you watching too?

I feel I am watching the church take that same slide. Rather than leading the world out of bondage into the light of the Gospel, the church is sadly keeping step with the world on its path to destruction.

The world is loosing its freedoms won by brave heroes of our freedom loving men and women. Sadly the free world has forgotten its history. The saying goes that if a people forgets its freedom, it will be doomed to repeat it.

Today’s church has largely also forgotten her history. Sales of Foxes Book Of Martyrs used to be second only to the Bible. Our Sunday schools used to teach the history of the Reformation. Any protestant school child could have told you who Martin Luther, John Wycliffe or John Huss were, not so now.
I have recently been privileged to read some stirring histories of protestant missionaries. This history also has been largely allowed to slide away.

Never before has the world offered up such a smorgasbord of false religions to choose from. Never before has authentic Christianity been bent and twisted to the point where it has almost lost all credibility. Satan must be delighted.

I wish to band with other like minded Christians who are standing firm for the Bible being our guidebook for pleasing God. People today, as they have in the past, are won to Jesus with the pure milk of the Word of God.

We Bible believers are not looking for seeker sensitive churches, there are more than enough of those to go around and we don’t want them. We are looking for courageous, honest pastors who will lead and teach us from the Word of God.

In centuries past, missionaries were trained and sent out to a dieing world with only their Bibles as their guide books. The Holy Spirit was their helper. There were no church growth or seeker sensitive programs then.
Through faith in God and godly patience those church planters converted whole countries and by doing so, changed the world.

Christians today seem to think that the church should change the world. I disagree. I believe it is the job of the church to change souls and changed souls will make the world a better place. There is a fine line here and many misunderstand it, I did myself for years.

Rather than the church trying to force the world to behave, I believe it is the job of the church to make followers of Jesus Christ. Authentic followers of Jesus Christ will change the world around them through their love, respect of others and deep love for freedom. I do not believe real freedom can long last in a vacuum without Christianity, it will be swallowed up by evil.

I wonder if the mistake we are making today, isn’t the same mistake the Jewish people made while our Lord was here among mankind. They came to Him expecting Him to lead a military revolt against the Romans. They wanted Him to make this place a better world to live in. His answer to them was that His kingdom was not of this world.

I am not abdicating good citizenship, our Lord told us to render onto Caesars, the things that were Caesar’s. He told us to be good stewards of the world. But our main focus should be to bring the lost into a saving relationship with Him. If the church were as focused on that as it has been in years past, the world would be the place many in the church are trying to force it to be. We are taught to be the light of the world, not the police force of the world. Let’s get back to being a light onto a dieing world and the world will have a true path to follow into righteousness.